Adventures of An American Chef on the Run: Cooking Dry Beans For Newbies!

Today's post isn't glamourous, but honestly it's necessary.  We live in a day and age where people hardly cook their own beans anymore in the states.  For most, it's a fairly intimidating prospect.  Anyone that's embarked on the task without any prior experience know's it's not just as simple as putting beans in a pot of water and boiling them.  There are a few things to consider that will make it so your beans turn out perfect, every time.  I've cooked a lot of beans a this point, good and bad and I've got it hammered down to where I can produce soft beans every time.  Since beans are a big part of my life, I figured it's important to finally give you a step by step on how to cook dry beans, how I do it. 

Amounts are up to you, as are ingredients honestly.  I used pinto, just check the quality of the beans.  Being in the tropics, the storebought beans aren't always in the best condition, so check that before you buy.  I tried to do this one days ago but was held up by the fact that my beans were bad, more my fault than anything. I also add seasonings and bullions, to taste based off of what's available.  I've used as little as salt and super complex ones involving salsa and garden peppers.

Pour into a bowl to sort, I did the whole kilo but I generally just do half for the two of us.

Hand sort the beans, take out any rocks at the least, but I generally take out odd colored beans and any beans that look funny to me.  I literally throw these out the front of my house, but there's a steep mountainside below so doing that makes perfect sense. Any beans that sprout just add nurtients to the hillside. This is important to do though, as a rock in the beans will break teeth, I've heard rumors of it happening before. 

Rule of thumb is to start with twice the amount of water as beans, at least.  I did more so I didn't end up adding much later.  If you don't want to add anything, add a lot more water as it will boil off and be absorbed by the beans. 

Start by heating the bean pot on medium.  The beans will look shriveled like the above photo at first.

After about 10 minutes of cooking, we got news that we needed to leave so I just shut off the beans.  This is technically called the quick soak method and it's really the only pre-soaking I will do.  I've tried overnight soaking but I found it actually takes longer to cook the beans depending on how long they soak.  Something to consider is that when you soak beans in water, you're starting the germination process.  Once they get to a certain point, they're pretty much impossible to cook to the consistency that most enjoy when they think of eating beans.  

This is something I never understood until I had farmed for awhile and let a lot of beans soak overnight.  Sometimes by morning the beans would have roots.  I'd cook them for hours and hours and they'd never soften.  So now, at the most, I'll boil for a few minutes and turn them off for an hour.  This reduces energy costs as they soak up a lot of water without extra heat.

They looked like this after I returned, plump like cooked beans but still firm.  No longer wrinkled, though!

Just let them boil, although turn them down to low as you don't need much more energy than that to keep them simmering pretty good.  

I test my beans periodically for doneness, just by smashing them.  I don't usually use a plate, I just did that for the purpose of catching what I see, to show you what I'm talking about.  If you smash open your beans to find them crumbly, dry and grainy inside, keep cooking.  If the beans are exposed due to the water boiling away, add more and keep cooking.  Time and amount of water literally varies pot to pot, but it's always at least 2 hours of passive simmering on low. 

There was one soft, which meant that they were getting close.  You'll notice at a certain point that half are getting mushy like you'd like and half aren't, just keep cooking.  If there's any that are dry, keep cooking and adding water, I'm not kidding.  This was my single flaw with making beans, I gave up cooking and adding water too early.  Older, long term stored beans will take SIGNIFICANTLY longer to cook, I've had a batch of beans take 8 hours, so don't get discouraged, you might just have old beans. They'll be fine, they just need more time and water. 

These look much closer to what we're looking for.

When they're soft, moist and creamy inside they're done.  They should mash easily with a fork or finger and the seed coats should be split and slipping off slightly.

Here's my pot, once it was finished.  This can be adapted to any beans for any recipe.  If it's for a dessert, cook them plain in water or maybe add a little milk.  If they're for soup, season them with garlic and onion and the like.  I use this base recipe for any beans I cook and it works.  So there you have it.  Next time, I share my foolproof super simple refried bean recipe, something everyone should know how to make. 

Oh, and a pro-tip for those who like beans but not the way they make the human gut feel, try cooking with epazote.  I put just a few small leaves in mine and it drastically helps in that department, without adding too much of it's super pungent odor. 

Thanks for reading!